Baggies look to improve away form at Norwich

Norwich City v West Bromwich Albion; Carrow Road, Saturday 20th January 2023, 3pm

While many supporters will already be looking ahead to next weekend’s much anticipated Black Country Derby, Carlos Corberán and his players will have their sights set firmly on a tricky trip to Norfolk where the Baggies will be hoping to improve their patchy form on the road.

Albion’s results at the Hawthorns have been excellent of late, but they have lost four of their last six away games including defeats at Middlesbrough and Swansea City either side of the holiday period. Over the season, Albion are only averaging 1.15 points per game on the road which is only the 10th best in the division, and almost a point worse than there average for home games. Only Plymouth Argyle have a higher discrepancy between their home and away results in the Championship.

Carrow Road has been a relatively happy hunting ground for the Baggies in recent years having only lost one of their last eight matches in Norwich. The Canaries, who are currently in 11th place but only two points off the play-off places, have a decent home record and were last beaten at Carrow Road by Blackburn Rovers in early November.

David Wagner has just celebrated a year in charge of Norwich City having taken over from Dean Smith when he was sacked just after Christmas 2022. He was unable to maintain City’s play-off push last season and they finished 13th, while a strong start to the current campaign, which saw Norwich as high as second in late August, stuttered in the autumn as one win in nine league games saw them drop to 17th in early November. Since then, form has picked up and they pulled off a surprise victory away to Hull City in their last league game.

The Canaries were in action on Wednesday in an FA Cup replay at Bristol Rovers, but it was a starting eleven that had been subject to eight changes from the side that won at the KC Stadium in their previous league match so it is unlikely to have too much impact on the energy levels of the eleven likely to start on Saturday.

Carlos Corberán will be pleased to have a few more options to choose from for this match with the arrival of Andi Weimann and the possibility that Jed Wallace, and even perhaps Daryl Dike, could be ready to start. With Tom Fellows having performed well in recent weeks, it will be a welcome change to have several good options on the bench irrespective of who gets the nod to start. Brandon Thomas-Asante and John Swift are both enjoying decent seasons, of course, while Adam Reach proved against Blackburn that he, too, is still capable of doing a job in an attacking role.

The Baggies boss will obviously tailor his team to match the challenge that David Wagner’s team will pose, but I would be surprised to see too many changes behind the front four positions with the midfield and defence having performed superbly in recent weeks.

Albion are still waiting to record their first league double of the season and this weekend provides another opportunity having beaten the Canaries at home less than a month ago. Next week’s cup match may have captured the imagination of the Baggies faithful, but this is another massive match in the race for the play-off positions and, if Corberán’s team can claim all three points, it would be a huge result to further strengthen their place in the top six.

History

Saturday will see the 58th league meeting between West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City and it is the Baggies who have fared better with 25 wins to the Canaries’ 17, and they even have more league wins at Carrow Road in this fixture than their hosts on Saturday.

There were only three pre-war meetings between the sides, one in the FA Cup back in 1907 that Albion won, and then in Division Two in the 1938/39 season when the Baggies completed a league double winning 3-2 on their first visit to Carrow Road in September 1938 – Harry Jones and Meynell Burgin (2) were the goalscorers. City first beat Albion more than three decades later in November 1972 when Ron Saunders’ side won 2-0 in Norfolk.

In recent years, the Baggies have enjoyed their trips to Norwich, particularly in the league with the hosts coming out on top in just one of the last eight meetings at Carrow Road. That was a fairly comprehensive 4-0 victory in May 2013 which came a week before that incredible 5-5 draw with Manchester United at the Hawthorns in Sir Alex Ferguson’s last match – nine goals conceded in the last two games of the season was not the ideal way to conclude what remains Albion’s best Premier League season.

Of the other seven games at Carrow Road since 2007, Albion have won six with the outlier being the 1-1 draw from last September. One of the most memorable encounters was in the early days of Slaven Bilić’s Hawthorns tenure in August 2018. Jordan Rhodes gave the hosts the lead after 24 minutes but a double from Jay Rodriguez, one of which was from the spot, and Harvey Barnes’ second goal in his first three Albion games put the visitors 3-1 up by the 65th minute. Teemu Pukki reduced the arrears before Hal Robson-Kanu restored Albion’s two goal lead. Grant Hanley scored a third for the Canaries to make the last few minutes somewhat frantic, but the Baggies held on for what was their first victory of the season.

Albion’s best result at Carrow Road was a rare highlight in the 1996/97 season shortly after Ray Harford took the helm in February 1997. Mike Walker was in his second spell as Norwich City boss and the Norfolk club were pushing for a play-off place, but Albion proved to be a thorn in Walker’s side that season despite languishing in the bottom half of the table. While Alan Buckley was still in charge, the Baggies had thumped City 5-1 at the Hawthorns in December for only their sixth win of the campaign, and they were in the goals once again when the clubs met at Carrow Road. Harford’s first game in charge was a home defeat by Swindon Town but they found their flow in Norfolk and were 3-0 up inside an hour with Paul Peschisolido scoring twice either side of a Richard Sneekes goal. Daryl Sutch pulled one back for the hosts but Pesch then completed his hat trick to make it 4-1. A Neil Adams penalty for Norwich made the final score 4-2.

Stat Attack

Current Form

All competitions; most recent game on the right

Last matches

Last meeting

26 Dec 2023 – League Championship
West Bromwich Albion 1 (Thomas-Asante)
Norwich City 0

Last meeting at Norwich City

17 Sep 2022 – League Championship
Norwich City 1 (Byram)
West Bromwich Albion 1 (O’Shea)

Last win at Norwich City

11 Aug 2018 – League Championship
Norwich City 3 (Rhodes, Pukki, Hanley)
West Bromwich Albion 4 (Rodriguez (2, 1 pen), Barnes, Robson-Kanu)

Albion’s Record against Norwich City